Saturday, 5 July 2014

Game of Thrones Exhibition in Sydney July 1-5

The opening day of the Game of Thrones Exhibit (Tuesday 1 July) held at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Sydney, reported queues as long as 6 hours. They were not joking.
I had resigned myself to not seeing the exhibition because I was planning to go to visit my parents with my children during the school holidays. But on Thursday night one of my friends called me and asked me if I was going to see it, as he had taken the day off on Friday to go and see it and wanted me to come with him. He said he would be there at 8am (exhibition opens at 10am) and I spoke to my parents and said naively "I should be able to get in at 10, be done by 11 and then we can drive to your house." They told me to go enjoy myself.
Well....
So I hopped on the train and got into the city at about 815am, and I could see from the train station the huge queues in front of the MCA already. He was a minute or two ahead of me and was heading to the line so I went to meet him. It was already REALLY long and getting longer. Lucky we got into the main line.

Snaking queue in front of the lawn of the Museum of Contemporary Art - not unlike herding sheep

See the bike next to the orange barrier? That's the queue to GET into the queue! 2nd queue along harbourline

All my good intentions about bringing a book to read had gone out the window in my dash to get out this morning (not to mention, terribly antisocial for poor Shab), and I couldn't find my Brookstone charger so I couldn't charge my phone or camera whilst sitting around, which meant I couldn't do much web browsing or game playing on my phone either. But my friend and I just chatted away for hours as we progressed through the huge line. I think it's the longest time I'd spent talking to my mate, and luckily we had heaps to talk about - or at least I did. It was fun talking WoW, work, cartoons, comics and Game of Thrones stuff. And there were a few cosplay people outside entertaining the crowds!

We got to the "3 hour wait" sign at 1:40pm, the "2 hour wait" sign at 2:20pm, and the "1 hour wait" marker at 3pm and the "30 minute wait" mark at 3:15pm. We finally got INTO the exhibit at 3:55pm.
There were 2 mini queues (they were nothing compared to outside's line) for pics on the Iron Throne, and also for the Oculus Rift 4D experience on The Wall.

The replica Iron Throne. Looks good in pics, but up close it's VERY plastic!

The virtual reality experience of ascending the Wall with wind blowing on your head and being shot by flaming arrows! I have to admit, I was skeptical about trying it but it turned out to be rather cool. That 4D Oculus Rift headset was pretty realistic and you could look to the sides and up and see stuff. When I was shot with the flame arrow in the chest, I was automatically trying to put it out!

All the costumes were amazing. So much detail and work went into them!

Arya Stark and The Hound (and her wooden training sword used with Syrio)

Ygritte's furs and John Snow's leathers

Two of Daenerys Targaryan's outfits

Melisandre and Stannis Baratheon

The props were all quite memorable too! It was cool seeing some of the things that you remember from the show.

Eww pretty realistic looking prop of Jaime's severed hand

Obsidian blades, Ice picks

Verdict: Awesome exhibition, especially considering it was free! But worth an 8 hour wait? I don't think so! Saturday is the last day (5 July) and I hate to think what kind of crowds it will generate then. I wonder if they had booked tickets and the exhibition had cost something (man, they could have RAKED in the cash with this one), the crowds may have been a lot less. All up it was a good experience (though hours of my life I will never get back) but at least I had a fun time with Shab.